Twenty-Seven Breaths
by Firetoflame
Summary: Her breathing: he's learned to trust that sound more than anything else in his life. Maybe even more than his own heartbeat.


There are twenty-seven breaths between them. Eighty-three steps. Less if he runs. But distance isn't the problem. Distance is not an option. Clint knows this.

Natasha knows it, too.

As usual, here they were, in the midst of a complication, and yet somehow, because they were that good maybe, completely in sync. She'd smile at him, stowed away in his perch, if she didn't think it would result in her carotid being spilt along the cement floor.

She doesn't want to die in a warehouse. She sighs; the breath is long.

The man with the knife to her neck—their target—apparently has other plans.

So she adjusts for the slipup and leans into him, crushing her bound hands between her back and his stomach.

"Stay calm," Clint whispers into the Comm. His breath is steadying. She doesn't know who he's trying to reassure because neither of them need it, but she's grateful that he has the decency not to just assume. Sometimes it's nice to know that he considers her feelings—that he thinks of her as real and not the figurative Black Widow—even when he doesn't have to.

She's not scared after all, merely irked at the turn of events; pissed, really, that they took too long to realize that their informant was a double agent. This is why she prefers to do her own legwork. Some of the idiots they have working for SHIELD are so thick they could pass for mannequins.

Still, they managed to track down the target in record time; even though Natasha experienced most of the journey bound, gagged and held at gunpoint. But change is good, she supposes. It keeps her on her toes. Keeps life interesting.

As if taking down a known arms dealer in Sao Paulo wasn't interesting enough.

"You know, if you're trying to avoid permanent damage to your vocal cords you should probably stop moving." The voice is a low hum through the Comm.

She's got about twenty fresh comebacks to knock Clint back a step, but she can't use them without giving him up. So instead she smirks at the crossbeam near the roof. The steel ring he wears on his thumb catches the dull overhead lamps and she knows exactly where he is.

Perfect, she thinks.

There's a jerk on her hair as meaty fingers dig into her scalp.

She shifts, lining her shoulder up against the target's chest. His one putrid breath boils the blood in her head and stands the hairs on her neck. The blade's nicking her skin now. She smells metal. She smells sweat. She smells the iron and knows she bleeds. Still she shifts. Manoeuvring. Positioning. Just a little bit further. It would be easier if his belly wasn't so round.

If Raoul Lapota wasn't so keen on grinding against her. "Widow," he purrs beside her ear. "What cave did you crawl out of to find me here?"

Clint watches from the sky, his breath a harsh growl now. His teeth grind.

It sounds like gears in her head.

"Don't," she says. Raoul chuckles, low and lingering; just like his lips against her neck. But she's not talking to him. She's talking to Clint. He can't be occupied with things like that. She needs him focused on something entirely different.

"Tasha?"

"It's okay," she says. Raoul's tongue darts out against her skin.

Clint's hand stretches back, his muscles locking. The bow is taught, tense. Itching for release.

It takes her three breaths to tell him to shoot her. To confirm what he suspects.

It takes him two to decide she's right. This is the problem.

He shoots her.

There's the snap of the elastic against his arm. The tremble of the bow as it shudders. The arrow makes a sound, he knows it does, splitting the air like a blade, but he cannot hear it. Only the sound through the Comm. as it strikes the target.

And Natasha.

It kills Raoul through her, travelling through her shoulder and twisting through his heart, merging arteries and veins, puncturing new holes for the blood to escape into his chest. He sputters blood against her shoulder and pulls her down as he falls.

This hurts like a bitch and there's a cold puff of breath as she cries out.

Clint's heard it through the Comm. and it hurts him ten times more than her. He makes it to her in less than eighty-three steps thanks to the specialty arrows and only five stalled breaths.

Her eyes are glazed but she doesn't cry.

"Nat, I'm gunna pull it out, okay? You ready?"

There's a hissing breath in. Her lips are blue already, the cold and blood loss working double time against them. He grabs the shaft with both hands and pulls straight up. There's a hot breath out.

"That stings," she groans, rolling onto her side. The floor's freezing and she tells him so. Even his hands pressed against her face feel cold now. This worries him.

He rips pieces of his own shirt and, after knotting them, crushes them into her wound to slow the blood.

The breath is a mewling cry this time and Clint's just happy to see the spark of dangerous life back in her eyes.

It's how she responds to pain; she gets angry.

"Get me out of here," she says against his ear as he leans over her, binding the puncture through her shoulder.

"SHIELD's on the way," he says, and his breath is a warm bath against her face: mint from his gum and honey from the tea they shared this morning.

Her eyes flutter and his breath catches. "Don't look so worried, Barton," she whispers. "You're not getting rid of me that easily." He lets it go.

The Quinjet lets out its own nasally breath as the loading bay disengages three hours later.

Natasha is standing, barely, with Clint's help as a SHIELD employee arrives with a wheelchair. The ride to medical through the base feels like it takes forever.

But it's really only about forty-five seconds. And then there's thirty-three minutes of care given before Natasha's released for debriefing.

Fury wants to speak to them. There's a simmering, heated breath as he rubs his eye with the pads of his fingers.

Natasha ends up in the interrogation room first because the meds they gave her are supposed to kick in soon and then she's going to be snoring through the interview.

"I can't have agents who shoot each other," Fury tells her.

"There was no other option, sir." She stares him straight in the eye, the truth as concrete as the stone floor she bled out on earlier. Her breath is short.

"I don't know whether to consider this mission a success or not."

"With all due respect, sir, the target is dead."

"And my agents took drastic measures to achieve that. Romanoff, you could have died. Half an inch lower and Barton would have hit your heart."

"I trust his aim," she says. "And frankly so do you. It's why you gave him the snazzy nickname and suit. Plus, if I've got to go, then I'd rather it be him."

Friendly fire. That's the phrasing that ends up in the report Clint reads from across the table. Fury forgets that they call him Hawkeye for a reason.

"There was no other way," he assures him, arms crossed casually. He smacks his gum.

"And you were okay releasing that arrow?"

Clint takes one, long breath, allowing himself the five extra seconds to really put a face to that answer. "I trust her judgement. Plus, if anyone's gunna shoot her, it should be me."

Fury lets out a strangled breath and leaves the room.

Agent Hill's been waiting for him, watching through the one-way glass outside.

"I've got one of them with a death wish," Fury tells her. "And the other one power tripping. How do I approve another mission like this?"

"How do you not?" Hill says, hands folded together at the base of her spine. "They get results. No other agents would have done what they did today."

"Maybe that's my problem. Where's the line with those two?"

Hill regards them for a moment. "I'm not sure they have one, sir."

Clint stretches out, his foot propped on her chair. The sensors detect his movement and the interrogation room lights up again.

Natasha sits with her legs out, supporting her arm on the edge of the table, blinking away the harsh white glow that falls over them.

Clint's foot brushes her back and she looks over. "Think we should have said it was an accident?" he asks.

"We don't make those kinds of mistakes. It was a nice shot, though."

"Well I was under a lot of pressure." His lips quirk. "But you know I'd do anything for you, Tash. Even shoot you apparently."

She laughs. Her quick breath reaches his steady one, and it's in that small space that exists between them that they finally relax.

The questions are done.

The mission is closed.

Natasha is patched for the moment.

And all Clint wants to do is take her home, lie in bed, and let the sound of her breathing carry him away on the night.

He's learned to trust that sound more than anything else in his life.

Even more than his own heartbeat; it's failed him too many times to count.

But Natasha . . . she hasn't failed him yet.


End file.
